Kicking at all speeds and moving rearward!

Likely the person si not kicking with straight legs. Bending in the knees produce no propulsion but loads of drag. Also, lack of flex in the ankles, I can imagine this will work like a shovel kicking water the wrong direction. But really, wrong technique. If you can't spot it from the deck, get in the water and see what's going on.

I'd bet on the ankle flexibility. Give this a try sometime - go in and do a kick set but, instead of pointing your toes like you normally would, keep your toes pulled up towards your shin as much as possible (exactly the thing you wouldn't want to do if you wanted an effective kick). When I do it, I can move backwards while kicking.

Same thing happened to me when I started swimming. My problem was that my toes weren't flexed out behind me but pointed down toward the bottom of the pool. It is apparently common for those from a running background. I used zoomers and worked on flexing my ankles to improve it.

This is very common.

Most often for triathletes, it's "runner's kick". That means that the ankle is stiff and all the kick moves the person backwards (and up). Kicking, in those cases, will make the swimmer slower and more tired.

The cure, however, is three fold.

1) More kicking, especially to increase ankle flexibility and proper kick form
2) balance drills (so that kick isn't as needed to stay afloat/on top of water
3) drills to integrate kick into the swim.

This doesn't mean that the result or goal is to kick a lot during races, but a lot of work on this weakness can net huge results for the rest of the swim. There's no way to totally avoid kicking in a triathlon swim, so this work will help make the little kicking done be a kick that will move the swimmer forward rather than backward.

"There's no way to totally avoid kicking in a triathlon swim"

I believe the use of wetsuit with thick rubber on the legs will benefit this individual greatly. So much that the legs can just drag along without any issue. What drills to integrate the kick into the swim if kicking in the horizontal position is useless?

Here's one to try:
First put on a pair of fairly long fins. A snorkel is also useful for this drill. In fact, use snorkel gear if you have it, it's easier to make your movements slo-mo.

Face-down, kick very slowly from the hips and glutes, allowing the whole body to rock from side to side. When you rock onto the left side, slide your left arm forward into a streamline position above your head. Slide it back as you rock onto your right side and slide your right arm up into streamline. You'll be doing a sort of slow motion dog paddle.

After doing this for a few lengths, recover the arm up above the water before putting it into the streamline position. (You'll be doing a catch-up between the two arms, with one still out in front as the other enters the water.) Keep it slow. Use the lane with the head-up breast strokers if necessary. After a while you can bring in a rhythm. If you want to do a two-beat kick (which is GREAT for those of us with poor ankle flexibility, as it gets in the way a lot less) keep alternating from leg to leg. If you want to learn a six-beat kick, slightly exaggerate every third kick. (LEFT right left, RIGHT left right....)
Hope this helps.

Edited by Seabeast 2013-05-26 8:09 AM

this is the swimsmooth link for kicking: http://www.swimsmooth.com/kick.html

It is not in the beginner section.